January 27, 2010

Marc by Marc Jacobs Lake Blue Multi Argyle Sweater

Way back in the fall, when I first received the Barneys Co-op Fall Winter 2009 mailer, I instantly fell in love with this argyle cardigan from Marc by Marc Jacobs, modeled by the handsome-and hot-but-in-a-slightly-strange-and-badass-way Tyler Riggs.

Once a believer that one can never have too much argyle, I now feel that argyle has become so mainstream that even straight guys think they're fashionistas each time they don their "smart" looking sweaters...gifted to them by their wannabe style-maven midwestern girlfriends...who think they're SO clever shopping for their man at Banana Republic. And I could go on and on... Needless to say, one needs to maintain a degree of selectivity these days when shopping argyle, after all, you wouldn't want to be mistaken for something or someone else, would you? I definitely identified with the characteristic "MbMJ-spin" on this piece...ho-hum conventional turns into quirky.

Alas, the mailer was released before Barneys' placed the cardigan for sale online, and so despite making the best mental note possible to follow up with a return visit to barneys.com, life got busy, I strayed from my priorities, and I forgot about it...

...UNTIL I noticed the piece was online, MARKED DOWN, earlier this month...but in only an XL left! DAMN! How did I let myself completely miss this?! It's no secret Barneys has had inventory issues, and so unlike previous years when I've held out hope that perhaps a returned piece might get restocked online, I was pretty convinced that once the XL sold (and it did), this item's tenure at Barneys was DUNZO.

Lo and behold, essentially resigned to giving up the good fight, I stumbled upon this piece while paging through a UK-based website unfamiliar to me at the time: www.my-wardrobe.com. And there, in the 75% off section, was my sweater, IN MY SIZE, just taunting me to drop it in my shopping cart. HAPPY ENDING!

I don't even know what wayward surfing expedition led me to this site. But I'm quite pleased that fate has led me to this conclusion. About My-Wardrobe, the site has a well-curated selection of pieces from an excellent roster of labels -- McQ, APC, Opening Ceremony, Burberry (unfortunately, but understandably, only Brit and London it appears), and of course, Marc by Marc Jacobs. The cardigan I bought is no longer available, but there's quite a few other great pieces in the sale section still from a variety of labels. Customer service is quite pleasant, given I was a first time shopper, they got in touch with me to confirm my shipping address. I must admit, they're not well-structured for international e-commerce (yet, hopefully), as shipping was kind of a bitch and there was only one option for US orders, but I'm really not complaining, I've got my cardigan :) And in a very expedient time-frame too.